Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Gratitude: March 2011

This month is my birthday, so I would like to start of by saying I'm grateful for another year of life. Life is so precious and with all the "challenges" we see in the world right now, I'm just thankful for the life God has given me no matter the circumstances I'm challenged presently or in the future. My month started with some good "getting to know" more of my friends. I had some good times where friends opened-up (e.g. email, meeting at the local coffee shop, etc..) more about their life, which it has taken years as friends. I'm thankful for the friends God has put in my life as they have spoken words of encouragement to me.

I was also encouraged to keep doing what I'm doing (writing my on-going life story through websites like these to inspire or encourage others that may benefit from your life experiences) through an inspirational movie (e.g. Antwone Fisher-see Life: Adoption) and a visiting speaker during a post-movie discussion (see Native American)during the local campus's annual event (World Touch Cultural Heritage Week)in the last week of the month. Basically, we all got a story to share and it goes to waste if we don't tell about it...

"We need to learn from history to prevent it from repeating itself"


In order to know where we are going, we need to learn our past. Some people don't go far enough (e.g. family genealogy or family tree) in the past as they stop there. How far in history can you go? (see Creation story)

I also enjoyed the "nearing" Spring-like weather some days of the month despite the first day of Spring started the 20th of March. I had the opportunity to ride my bike, which I'm going to try to do more as it reached it's highest ever for a long-time today (Tuesday, April 5th 2011) at $3.63/gallon!! Crazy, huh? We need to find ways to conserve gas (e.g. walking or riding a bike-great health benefit too with all this exercise).

I can't leave sports out of this too as it was the month of "March Madness"! It was more basketball as a nearby local town (see Stevens County) h.s. girls basketball team went to the big State Tournament. They actually beat a #1 team in the first round, which was very exciting for my workplace. Several of my co-workers are from Hancock, so we followed (via radio at work for 2-days) their local team very closely during the end of the 3rd week. Unfortunately, the lost the 2nd round, which a win would've been a great birthday bonus. I'm very blessed with great co-workers as they gave me a great celebration (e.g. pies, cake, etc..) and I ended up bringing the pies back to the cities to share with family. My family blessed me with a lunch outing at Red Lobster-great seafood!

That same weekend I was in the cities was the annual "Philippine Day" (see GoodnewsMinnesota.info- Minnesota Filipino Community)..

24th Annual Philippine Day St. Paul, MN-Part 1 (March 20th 2011)



Other highlights included one "Snow Day" (saw the 2nd of the "Bourne Identity" trilogy series, which I would watch with a good friend the 3rd part later in the week -see Issues: "Low" Self-Esteem, -Image, -"ish", etc... as I wrote about finding one's own "identity" in life) of the month, which happened 3 days after the "first-official" day of Spring. Went to a couple of "fish fry" with Lent season as I did some fasting once a week during the month and will continue till Easter as I "try" to seek my Heavenly Father's "calling" in this season of my life. I went to an event to learn more about Judaism, a foundation of my Christian faith! I then had my faith built more during a local radio (see Music-Hymns, Praise, Worship, etc...) banquet I was invited (along with a couple of co-workers, friend, and others in the Praise FM listening area) to as faithful sponsor for many years. Lastly, I had a great time with several new students (from Brazil) of my weekly GED-ESL classes the last week as I showed them the "new" town!

During the state girls basketball tournament, there was an unfortunate deadly earthquake in Japan. Currently, as I write this today (Tuesday, April 5th 2011), they are still battling the radiation leak of their nuclear power plants (see Science: Chemistry). Please keep these folks in Japan and their national catastrophe in prayer!

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